


Ephemera

by herbailiwick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 21:38:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For adestrae.</p><p>Kevin can't ignore some of the things he's reading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ephemera

Sam wakes up, bleary-eyed, the sound of his ringtone and the light of his phone the cause. He sits up a little, dragging the phone toward him, blinking at the too-bright screen before his brain catches up.

It's Kevin. He answers the call. "Hello?"

"Sam. Uh. Hi."

Sam rubs his eyes. "Hey, Kev. How are you holding up?" He yawns.

Kevin's quiet for a while. 

"You there?" Sam calls. His voice is sleep-scratchy and holds the perfect amount of concern. Kevin sighs at the sound of it.

"Sam, are you alright?"

"Hm?" Sam swallows, looking around a little at his dark, empty room. "Yeah. Why do you ask?"

"Some of the stuff I've been reading," Kevin says, voice quiet and strained. Sam shifts a little, chewing at his lip.

"Don't worry about me," Sam says. 

"I can't do that." Kevin's voice is all urgency all of a sudden. "Sam, have you...have you been to see a doctor?"

"Yeah."

The silence hangs in the air between them.

"I have a problem too," Kevin says softly. "I really have a problem."

"Is it the drugs?" Sam asks. Sam suddenly feels dread widen his eyes and cause him to sit up straight and, no, he's not gonna lose another lonely teenager depending on his help. It won't happen, not on his watch.

Kevin's quiet. Sam can almost hear possibilities, though, can sort of sense the things Kevin might want to say. 

"You want me to come and see you," Sam says.

"I couldn't ask you that," says Kevin. "You need Dean, especially right now."

"I've let you down before, Kevin. I turned off my phones, even though I saw Crowley take you. I won't leave you alone this time. You deserve a little change in company. Any special requests? I'll bring you something."

"Okay," Kevin breathes. "I mean, if you need to stay, stay. Really. I'll manage. But if you really want to come? I. I'd...yeah. P...please."

***

Kevin slowly greets him, all caution and guilt, but Sam carefully offers his arms, and Kevin steps forward. "You really didn't have to," Kevin murmurs into warm plaid.

"You deserve it," Sam urges, so gentle, always so kind, the owner of a million controllable gestures that fascinate Kevin when they're put to use by a 6'4" frame.

This is the man who wielded Mjolnir for Kevin, Kevin thinks. It's the man who turned off every phone, but never out of spite, never to be cruel to Kevin. He'd been hurting. Kevin knows that. He sees that in Sam as clearly as he sees everything else about him now, like the fact that he's wearing plaid, and that...he smells good.

"Come on." Kevin pulls back, tugging at one of Sam's huge hands, sort of linking their fingers as he draws Sam inside. "Home sweet boat," he teases. "Again."

Sam smiles a little in the dim light of the one lamp Kevin seems to rarely turn off.

"I shouldn't have asked you here," Kevin admits. "It's just...." His hand clenches around Sam's, and he swallows.

"You were worried about me," Sam says, touched, brow furrowed in that look of innocence and confusion he's the master of.

Kevin uses his other arm to lean against Sam heavily and sigh into plaid again. "Yes," he says, the sound muffled.

Sam does a strange thing then, reaching up to stroke fingers through Kevin's short hair.

Kevin pulls his face away from the firm chest to offer, "You're dying."

"Yeah," Sam says, the word heavy and harsh as it comes out, like it's the first time he's said it, and he looks young in the familiar light of the ever-on lamp, he looks devoid of a mask, exposed, not-quite-healthy.

"I'm so sorry," Kevin says with a swallow.

"Whoa!" Sam still has Kevin's hand, and he takes the other one quickly, two large hands engulfing Kevin's own, and he says, "Kevin, this isn't on you. You know that, right?"

"Without me, you would never have known about the trials. So, you don't need to soften the blow. You don't need to baby me." He clenches Sam's hands slightly. "I can take blame where it's due."

Sam shakes his head, that long hair adding emphasis. "It's true, Kevin. This isn't your fault."

"If I'd just read on, I could've warned you."

"You didn't know," Sam says. "You _didn't know_."

Kevin tugs Sam forward and down by the hands, relishing in the careful way Sam follows his lead, the intensity of Sam's gaze as he tries to figure out what Kevin wants, the flare of understanding as their faces get close and pause.

"Kevin?"

They're kissing. Kevin has both of Sam Winchester's large hands in his own, and they're kissing, and that hair brushes at the sides of his face.

Once, Kevin had long hair too. Once, Kevin looked at people with the expressions Sam wears all the time. Kevin isn't the same anymore. He's lost things he should have held onto; it's his fault and also it's not.

Sam pulls away to breathe heat against Kevin's cheek, his hands still held by Kevin's. "Okay," he says.

"Really?" Kevin asks. He finally releases Sam's hands, oddly nervous that Sam will just leave him again because of the kisses.

They pull apart enough that Sam looks down into his face and he looks up into Sam's and they don't know exactly the right words, but they both try.

"I, uh. I liked that," Sam says. "I don't want any regrets here, though. And I'm not exactly comfortable with being your first when it comes to anything. Um. I'm...I'm like close to twice your age."

Kevin suddenly feels young and innocent again for a moment, and it's kind of nice. "Sam, I've had a stroke," he points out quietly. "I suffer from headaches every day. I live on a boat and forget to shower and I somehow get by so I can be one day closer to getting out of here, to being free to just...walk around. Being free to see my mom. It's...I mean, you probably don't understand."

One of Sam's hands finds Kevin's cheek, the knuckles brushing, and Kevin feels like a good person, like someone worth having faith in. "Not exactly, no. You're in a unique situation, and it's got to be rough as hell. And I'm so sorry."

"Maybe, in the interest of this being a marathon and not a sprint and all of that, we shouldn't do...much. You're right to worry. I wonder how smart it is too," Kevin admits. "But, if you wouldn't mind resting with me? I've had a hard time resting, but if you were here, I think...." His voice catches, and he breathes shakily, and tries not to let the stinging at his eyes and throat become an embarrassing display. He's just a teenager, yeah. But there are parts of him that are so different from that, are so removed from college entrance exams and trends and the cello.

Kevin giggles suddenly. "I used to play the cello," he tells Sam.

Sam tilts his head curiously. 

"Sorry," Kevin says, drawing in a breath. "It's. It's not even relevant. I'm just...." He shrugs.

"It sounds relevant to me," Sam says, and Kevin realizes he's looking up at a very nervous Sam Winchester.

Kevin flicks off the lamp and leads Sam toward the bed, helping him sit. "Take off your shoes," he says, feeling oddly distant from Sam for a moment, distant from his bed, from the calendar, the alarm clock with its glow.

He waits as Sam removes his shoes. He takes his own off too, sets all four next to each other in the near-dark, feels oddly satisfied with the pairs' proximity.

"We can still make out?" His voice is a little choked.

Sam starts to make himself as comfortable as possible on the too-short bed.

"I'm sorry. The bed's too...short," Kevin says, the darkness somehow making everything seem more disappointing, more pathetic.

"It's fine," Sam says, but he isn't just saying it, he _means_ it. "It's fine, Kevin." He lowers his voice in embarrassment at what he's about to say. "All it needs is you."

A quick shucking of his jeans in favor of the pajama pants Garth brought him, and Kevin's there, he's navigating the Winchester Landscape in the dark, helping them fit together.

"Will you tell me about playing cello?" Sam asks, and he sounds so _interested_. "I never played an instrument," he admits. "My dad said not to bother."

So Kevin tells him everything he remembers about the cello, about the centering, triumphant power of creating music, about how disciplined and somehow-impressive and normal it had been. And Sam listens to him, offers him kisses and two strong arms in the dark of the room where Kevin usually finds it hard to sleep. 

Amid the worries about Sam's declining health and about his own, amid thoughts of his poor mom and of the way he used to play the cello with soul and the fact he's afraid he lost the capability to do that somewhere along the line while he was running from demons, Kevin falls asleep in the warm shelter of a 6'4" friend-and-maybe-more, pressed against a plaid shirt, running sleepy fingers through long hair like the haircut he once had, so long ago


End file.
